Les Demoiselles d’Avignon « A Brush With Art

figures are composed in flat, splintered planes rather than solid rounded volumes, the eyes are either lopsided and staring or asymmetrical, and the heads of two women at the right are threatening masks. The space, which, in effect, should recede, comes forward in serrated shards, resembling broken glas

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he later referred to this work as his “first exorcism painting.” Picasso had specific dangers in mind, as, at the time, life-threatening sexual diseases were a source of considerable anxiety in Paris.

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The wild treatment of the body and the discords of colour and style positions Les Demoiselles d’Avignon as making a radical break from traditional composition and perspective.

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the three on the left are presented as geometric, angular distortions of Classical figures, whilst the violently displaced features of the other bodies are portrayed with all of the barbaric qualities of primitive art

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Picasso took the notions of spatial depth, and the ideal form of the female nude, and restructured them into unsympathetic, sharp planes; planes which whilst not flat are given a degree of shading to make a pretence of giving them a certain three dimensionality.

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The artist has now reached a point where he has created a compression of space, reminiscent of Post-Impressionist painting, which is carried to the extreme creating a surface alive with a series of livid angular lines, curves, and disjointed planes, revealing the vital sense of formal energy that he valued so highly in primitive art

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The figures, for the most part, are buff with their anatomy indicated by serrated white or black contours; one takes on the cinnamon tone of the background at the left, whilst another in the upper right is enclosed by a harsh blue, as if surrounded by a sudden glimpse of sky.

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warmly monochrome bodies of the central figures are very much reminiscent of his Rose Period; Picasso here has skilfully reduced contrasts of colour and texture to a minimum in order that they do not compete with the overall design

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He rebelled against the whole notion of feminine beauty, and in this work he set out to destroy the whole canon of Western art since the early Renaissance

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